Olympic champion Grainger sets date for return to rowing

06 November 2014 / 12:09

Katherine Grainger will make her competitive return to rowing in the UK since winning London 2012 gold later this month at the GB Rowing Team Assessment.

Grainger, who will turn 39 on November 12, is Great Britain’s most successful female rower with one gold and three silver Olympic medals in her possession, not to mention six World Championship titles.

However she has not raced since she claimed double sculls gold alongside Anna Watkins at the London 2012 Games.

That will all change over the weekend of November 15-16 though with the Glaswegian taking the first steps to a potential outing at the Rio 2016 Olympics.

“People who are very happy and content [in their retirement] say ‘I love watching the sport, I don’t want to do it again - I don’t want to go back to the training regime or to the stress and nerves of competitions’, whereas I was watching it thinking ‘I can do that. I should be doing that. I like doing that!’” Grainger said.

“When I made the decision, I obviously had Rio in mind - I wouldn’t come back just to do this as a ‘job’. I came back feeling that if it all went right the Rio Olympics was always the goal.

“We’ve got some fantastic experts working all the way across British sport and I feel in very, very safe hands.

“All of the staff so far have been really positive. They have said, ‘yes, you need to be sensible and of course as you do get older, recovery is more important than ever before but other than that there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be hitting the peaks you have hit before."

Also set to compete later this month will be Alan Campbell, the London 2012 Olympic single sculls bronze medallist having missed out on the World Championships earlier this year.